


Lift

by fireinthedark



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:46:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireinthedark/pseuds/fireinthedark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flying isn't as easy at it looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zebra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zebra/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this.

The war is over. Diaval and Maleficent both have their wings back -- not that a dragon doesn't have wings, but it's just not the same. Diaval ruffles his feathers.

So much better than scales.

He hops over to where Maleficent is sitting, her back bent under the newly-returned weight of her wings. He caws at her and prods her shoulder with his beak when she doesn't answer. he pokes her again.

She waves a hand in the air and he can feel green lightning twisting him into a man again. The magic definitely feels a lot greener than it used to, back in the beginning, and he knows enough to know this is good.

(It is not that Diaval knows a lot about magic, but he has been around Maleficent long enough to know a little and he has cousins, over the hills and far away, who have told him all there is to know about gold and the madness it brings.)

"Are you well?" he asks, knowing full well the answer is no.

"The wings are heavier than I remember them being," Maleficent says.

"You're limping again," Diaval says. She'd called her staff first thing after the battle had been over.

Maleficent doesn't dignify that with an answer.

"It's because your body's different," Diaval says. He doesn't have the words to say what he wants to say -- doesn't know if there are words -- but he tries anyway. "The weight of it is --"

"Are you calling me fat?" Maleficent might be smiling, behind her hand.

"I'm calling you heavy." He certainly feels heavy and stretched out as a human. He doesn't know how she manages being like this all the time.

She's definitely smiling when she says, "Carry on, then."

"Thank you. The weight's spread differently so you," here, he gives up on words and makes rolling motions with his hand. "It's like me when I'm human. At first the magic guides me, then I fall on my face because I don't have wings and have these instead." He gestures to his legs, not sure if he means legs or hands. Appropriate either way.

"You don't fall on your face," Maleficent says.

"Well, not _now_ , but that's because I'm used to it. You just have to get used to it too." Diaval dips his head, then remebers to smile. Mouths are so much more expressive than beaks, if only he remembers to use them. "When you turn me into anything else, though, yes."

He rarely stayed anything else long enough for it to happen, but it did happen when he did.

Maleficent stands up.

Diaval takes a step back.

Her wing misses him narrowly as she says, "Teach me how to fly again."

"You don't need to be taught, you know how to do it already," Diaval says. "You just need practice."

She raises an eyebrow at him.

"I'll help," he says, like there was ever any doubt. "If you want me to."

"I asked you to be my wings, didn't I?" she asks.

"Oh." Diaval doesn't even realise he's said anything until Maleficent turns towards him.

"It means yes," she says.

"I knew that," Diaval says. They both know he's lying.

He waits.

She waits.

He flaps his arms. "Don't exactly have wings right now, do I?"

She smiles again and it strikes him that he's never seen her smile in such close succession before. This is good.

And then, as if to prove or disprove his earlier point, she changes him back into a bird too fast and he falls on his face. He rolls wings over beak and lands on his back. He squawks in amused outrage at her when she laughs.

He rights himself and takes flight.

She follows him up, wobbling as she does. Her balance is less offnow than it was on the ground -- of course, she hasn't had to relearn flying with her new body, because she couldn't, so she hasn't unlearned the proper weight of it when flying. She is merrily out of practice.

He nudges her wing with his and indicates that he's going to do a loop. She's welcome to try it, but he thinks she won't.

And she doesn't.

He does another loop anyway, partly to show her what she should soon be able to do and partly to try to forget how much he's missed flying.

It's not that he's been a man -- or even not a bird -- for very long this time, it's that he misses flying every moment where he's not doing it.

He spots a mistake he's found himself doing more than once when the changes between man and bird were too often too close together. He signals for Maleficent to land and that he wants to talk.

She lands and changes him back midflight, but he is expecting it, this time and he neither falls on his face nor falls at all.

"Well?" she asks.

"You've got legs, haven't you?" he says. "Use them and your arms, too. You can't just copy everything I do. I'm a bird, not --" he waves a hand at her. He tries again, "You need to balance differently. It's like you're not balancing at all!"

He has no words for what he wants to say. He knows shedoesn't glide the way she should, based on the shape of her wings and what she does with them.

"How do you even fly? Your wings aren't big enough." He doesn't say that they wouldn't be, even if her bones were hollow, which they are not.

"Magic," Maleficent says, like that's the answer to everything.

In fairness to her, she's a fairy, so of course it is.

"Well, your balance's all wrong," he says. "You're never going to fly properly with it like that. You should let your magic do the work."

"I thought I just needed practice," she tells him.

"That too," he says. "But maybe you need to practice the magic too. I'm just a bird, there's only so much I can do to help."

"You've done enough," she says, "and thank you."

She turns him back into a bird and so does not notice his shock -- or perhaps she does and that is why she does it; he's not sure she's ever thanked him before.


End file.
